


A Long Way Home

by Mgosche



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-15 19:32:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2240832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mgosche/pseuds/Mgosche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Captain America The Winter Soldier Bucky and Steve have to come to terms with everything that has happened and find their way back to each other</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> My first Captain America fic... any mistakes are mine

He stood alone on the edge of the crowd, isolated, anonymous, and stared at the display honoring the man he had once been. Catching sight of his reflection in the glass he compared the man he saw today to the man in the photos. He looked like a bum.

The last few days....weeks...were a blur to him. A fuzzy montage of HYDRA safe houses and supply drops, abandoned buildings, homeless shelters and cheap motels. He wasn't sure how much time had passed since The Fall but some moments stood out in his wrecked mind with perfect clarity...

         Steve's face, broken and bleeding, eyes, boring into his, filled with sorrow, acceptance and love.

         Watching Steve fall away from him as the helicarrier collapsed beneath them.

         Complete panic as Steve dropped further and further away from him, snapping another tether HYDRA had placed on his mind.

         Pain.....Oh God, the excruciating pain when his abused body slammed into the water as he followed Steve down. Knowing, as he had always known, that he would follow anywhere Steve went, even into the jaws of death.

         The rush of relief as the fingers of his metal arm clenched onto the beloved uniform and he knew that he had Steve and could get him to safety.

         _That metal arm....that damn metal arm....that horrible gleaming reminder that HYDRA had owned him, controlled him....almost used him to kill his best friend, his brother.._.

          Leaving Steve on the bank of the river, knowing he was injured but also knowing that he would heal. He hadn't wanted to leave but he knew everyone would be looking for him.               

          Diving back into the water somehow knowing exactly where Steve's shield was.

          Finding a moment when everyone was out of Steve's hospital room and making his way inside. Sitting at the foot of the bed, holding the shield, staring at Steve's battered face, one silent tear making its way down his cheek.

The excited squeal of a young child in the crowd brought his scattered thoughts back to the present. He quickly looked around, wide-eyed, almost panicked as he realized he had zoned out, drifting on the shattered sea of his mind for an unknown amount of time.

Drawing on the steely calm and focus of the Winter Soldier...The Asset...he locked down his wandering thoughts and brought his attention back to the photos and videos around him. Studying them intently, obsessively, he forced his shattered mind to recall the memories that corresponded with each image.

He had learned as he stood in the abandoned vault where he had been stored, repaired, programmed, _wiped... tortured... abused... frozen... hurt... pain... pain...PAIN..._

calm down          breathe                                focus

He had stood there and forced his broken mind to concentrate, to remember, to absorb all of the details he could force to the surface. He had realized that most of his memories were still there, not stolen from him, just buried under layers and layers of confusion and pain. As hard as it had been, he had learned how to coax the memories to the surface, study them, and save them in the undamaged part of his memory that had previously been set aside for the skills he had needed as The Asset. He wasn't sure how he was doing this, he just knew that he did.

A sharp pain abruptly stabbed through his head. Knowing this as a sign he had pushed his tormented mind as far as it could go for the day, he turned and made his way out of the building. He wasn't done here, but he knew that if he pushed himself too hard then the memories he was trying to recapture would slip further and further away from him. It had taken many tries, but he had learned to heed the signals that said stop. He would be back, but for today he had had enough.

Stepping out into the early evening foot traffic, his thoughts turned once again to his reflection in the display class. He did look like a bum and realizing that bothered him greatly. Hunching his shoulders at the thought, he made his way slowly back to the motel where he was staying at the moment. As he walked he tried to work out why he felt so strongly about his current appearance. It wasn't a specific memory that came to him, but rather a flood of little images from his past. Images of him and Steve out on a double date, or just out for a night on the town, flirting with the pretty girls. He had always been a dapper sort of guy, his clothes weren't fancy, but they were clean and pressed. He had always been freshly shaved and his hair neatly combed. Abruptly he remembered his father once telling him that a real man doesn't go out in public looking like a bum.

_A real man doesn't walk down a street firing machine guns and grenades...not caring who is injured or killed...civilians caught in the crossfire…innocent men, women and children....innocents who should be protected not endangered... monster....evil....hate you....hate you... HATE YOU...._

He stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk, head pounding as he tried to reign in his racing thoughts. Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes and focused on calming his heartbeat, imagining the rapid beat slowing until it was back to normal. Opening his eyes, he looked around, checking to see if he had drawn any attention to himself. Luckily the street he was on was deserted at this time of the evening so no one had witnessed his unusual actions.

Hurrying on to his motel, he made the decision to take time the next day to get himself cleaned up. He would shower and shave when he got up, then find himself somewhere to get his hair cut. Thinking back on the barbershops of his youth, he realized that being around men wielding scissors was probably a very bad idea. So, he would find some place where women cut the hair and catered to both other women and men. A place of soft hands and voices, gentle touches. Some place where they would trim his hair but wouldn't give him grief about leaving it long. It might not be what he was used to from the time before, but he had gotten used to the length, had gotten used to it swinging down around his face, forming a curtain to hide behind when the pain and terror of nightmares woke him panting in the early morning hours. Maybe it was weak, but then again, maybe that was the point he thought as he let himself into his room for the night...because The Asset didn't have weaknesses....but Bucky Barnes did and he so wanted to be Bucky again.

 


	2. Moonlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was up WAY too late working on this....I don't have a beta, any mistakes are mine
> 
> Inspired by [ this](http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140907.html)

Stationed on the roof of an old abandoned building, partially concealed in the shadows, he sat huddled against the rough brick façade, the playful evening breeze ruffling his long dark hair, occasionally sending it into his face to get caught in his long eyelashes or scruffy beard. Long used to sitting motionless in wait, he mostly ignored it, his only reaction being to tilt his head and shake the shaggy mane back when it threatened to impede his vision. Pressed tightly back against the cold, hard surface behind him, he drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them as the temperature steadily dropped and the wind picked up. He almost wished he still had his goggles when a particularly strong wind gust blew a strand of hair directly into his eye. Grimacing in discomfort, he sat up and quickly gathered his hair back, securing it with an elastic band. Settling back into position, he stared again to the east, waiting.  
  


When he had seen the news report about this event, it had struck a nerve in him. He wasn’t sure yet why the thought of it affected him so deeply, but he knew that he had to be in a position to observe it in its entirety. So, after his trip to the Smithsonian, he had picked his vantage point with care and positioned himself where he could observe without obstruction and, most importantly, without being seen.  
  
As night settled in around him, he shivered slightly in the cold spring air, straining his eyes, staring hard at the eastern horizon. When he got his first glimpse, his breath caught in his chest for a moment before stuttering back out on a moan of pure delight as the first golden edge of the Super Moon peered coyly through the gap between buildings. Massive and bright, it slowly rose over the horizon and he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Goosebumps covered his body and a lone tear tracked down his left cheek as memories crowded his mind.  
  
 _Sitting on the fire escape, wrapped in blankets, gazing up at the full moon peeking back down at him from beyond the tall buildings surrounding him. Steve tucked up next to him sketching in the meager light coming through the window._  
  
 _Walking down a tree lined street, pretty Beth Mason on his arm, her friend Sally walking beside Steve behind them, on their way to go dancing, pointing out the sliver of crescent moon rising opposite the setting sun._  
  
 _Lying in a foxhole in Italy, staring at the bright face of the nearly full moon, straining his ears to catch any sound that might hint at enemy movement beyond the edge of his vision. Praying that the light was bright enough to deter the enemy from trying to sneak up on them in the night and his men could get a full nights much needed sleep._  
  
 _Standing on a street corner in London, looking up at his best friend, his brother, full moon shining down, casting Steve’s face into shadow, heart aching as he truly realized that nothing would ever be the same between them again._  
  
Countless moons over countless battlefields, sitting around countless campfires with Steve and the other Howling Commandos, planning raids on HYDRA bases or sharing stories of their lives back home or just sitting silently listening to the sounds of the night, enjoying knowing they were safe and together for one more night.  
  
Visions raced into his mind in flashing vignettes as he sat completely still, never taking his eyes off of the glowing sight before him, half seeing it, half reliving his past. But not all the memories rushing into his mind were welcome. Dark memories surged to the surface as well, memories of silent, moonlit nights on missions for HYDRA, mask stifling his breathing, black camouflage war paint surrounding his eyes, sharpening his vision, lying patiently in wait...perfectly still, ready to take the shot and end a life, not knowing, not caring, why…just knowing who and when.  
  
He stared, unblinking now, caught in the grip of memories he would rather not recall. Heart aching, some small piece of him knew that he was not the monster he saw in his mind, knew rationally that the evil he had committed was not his fault, but he also felt in his bleeding, shattered heart that all that blood was on his hands, his eyes had focused on the targets, his finger had gently squeezed the trigger. He could never forget that his talents that he had used to help Steve, to save him, to aid him in his mission to help other people and to liberate the oppressed, had been subverted, stolen and abused, forced to bend to the will of the same evil forces he had once worked so hard to defeat.  
  
Tears streaming down his face, his head and his heart waged a battle for possession of his soul, the dark and light halves of his being warring, ripping open his deepest thoughts and fears and laying them bare in the pure light of this Super Moon. The comforting light was pouring down on him, brightening every dark corner of his being, judging him, weighing his worth and ultimately… ultimately freeing him from his guilt and remorse, removing his pain and replacing it with the bright, warm light of realization.  
  
Yes, he had physically committed those violent, evil acts, but he knew down deep in his very soul that if he could have stopped himself, he would have. Remembered, as he ran the cold metal fingers of his left hand over the pulsing veins in his right wrist, tracing the scars there, that he had tried so hard to end the nightmare during one of the few times his handlers had allowed his broken mind to begin to repair itself. He knew that it was for that very reason HYDRA had begun using the mind wiping machine at every opportunity and hustling him back into Cryo so quickly, because they had realized that, thanks to the bastardized version of the Super Soldier Serum Zola had given him, his damaged mind would begin to repair itself given the opportunity. The scientists had found out the hard way that once he started to regain awareness of himself he would attempt to kill everyone in the vicinity in a bid for escape, or in failing that would even try to end his own life in an effort to thwart HYDRA’s plans.  
  
Years ago the man he had once been would not allow himself to willingly be used for evil and so that man had been forced into the deepest, darkest corner of his mind and locked away. The confrontation with Steve had begun to loosen the chains HYDRA had used to lock Bucky Barnes away in his own mind and the time he had spent away from them had further eroded their restraints. Now, setting bathed in the light of the beautiful full moon, Bucky took his first tentative move forward, toward a new life.  
  
He could never go back to the man he was before, but maybe, just maybe he was finally on the path to becoming a new man, a better man. A man who could be worthy of the friendship and love he saw on Steve Rogers face.  
  
Deeply breathing in the cold night air, he worked the stiffness from his body as he got to his feet and headed for the roof access door. As he opened it and made to step through, he glanced back up at the moon one more time a genuine smile turning up one corner of his mouth.


End file.
